The first four installments of this Log were published in the
_Educational News_, under the acting editorship of Mr. Alexander
Sivewright, who was very anxious to publish the Log in full, but
apparently public opinion on the subject of the indiscriminate kissing
of girls forced him to hold up the remainder.
Then teachers began to write me letters. Some of them were very
complimentary; others weren't. These letters worried me, for I couldn't
quite determine whether I was a lunatic or a genius. Then an unknown
lady sent me a tract.
The title of the tract was: "The Sin That Found Him Out." The hero was a
boy called Willie. He never told a lie, and when other boys smote him he
turned the other cheek and prayed for them. "Life to him was one long
prayer," said the tract. Then troubles came. He grew up and his father
took to drink. His elder brother had a disagreement with the local
police about his whereabouts on the night of a certain robbery, and was
decidedly unconvincing. Willie stepped in and took all the blame.
The next chapter takes Willie as a private to the fields of Flanders,
and the penultimate chapter sees him a major-general. The last chapter
contains the moral, but what the moral is I cannot well make out. In
fact I don't know whether the title refers to Willie or his
transgressing brother, but I feel that somewhere in that pamphlet there
is a lesson for me.
Before the tract arrived I thought of publishing the Log as a brilliant
treatise on education. Its arrival altered all my values. I then knew
that I was the educational equivalent of the "awful example" who sits on
the platform at temperance meetings, and with great humility I besought
Mr. Herbert Jenkins to publish my Log as a terrible warning to my fellow
sinners.